Description
Given how entrenched Western systems of time have become in our quotidian lives, it has become increasingly important to broaden our perspective of what time is and can be. This year-long project will explore the intersection of time -- from both a textual and a technical perspective -- in Central American literature and art, focusing specifically on non-Western ontological perspectives and Indigenous and Black voices. My project will demonstrate how Central American voices have worked to question and decolonize the dominant Western narrative of time, and -- by bridging forms of often competing epistemes -- my project would consider these perspectives from outside of the once mutually exclusive categories of the humanities and the sciences. Central America itself is also my primary focus because it, too, is an othered voice within Latin America. In this sense, much of this work takes place within 'the liminal of the liminal', a space-time that deserves amplification. I hope that my work will show others how to better learn from the past and from the future, but most importantly, from non-Western voices. By questioning the linear conception of time we often think of as absolute, my project has the overall goal of decolonizing and decentralizing a Western single story.
Decolonizing the Clock: Non-Western Time Constructs in Central American Art and Literature
Given how entrenched Western systems of time have become in our quotidian lives, it has become increasingly important to broaden our perspective of what time is and can be. This year-long project will explore the intersection of time -- from both a textual and a technical perspective -- in Central American literature and art, focusing specifically on non-Western ontological perspectives and Indigenous and Black voices. My project will demonstrate how Central American voices have worked to question and decolonize the dominant Western narrative of time, and -- by bridging forms of often competing epistemes -- my project would consider these perspectives from outside of the once mutually exclusive categories of the humanities and the sciences. Central America itself is also my primary focus because it, too, is an othered voice within Latin America. In this sense, much of this work takes place within 'the liminal of the liminal', a space-time that deserves amplification. I hope that my work will show others how to better learn from the past and from the future, but most importantly, from non-Western voices. By questioning the linear conception of time we often think of as absolute, my project has the overall goal of decolonizing and decentralizing a Western single story.